Daughter of the Loa
by The Cheshire Cheese
Summary: A certain sim-star-turned-AI still faces countless unanswered questions. Is she the same person, or just a pathetic copy of a dead woman? Why did the Loa bring her here? She crosses realms searching for answers: first a silver beach, then Alpha Centauri, and finally, a city in the rain. (Tag to "Mona Lisa Overdrive;" ties in with "The Hinterlands.")
1. The Beach

**SPOILER ALERT: This ficlett is concerns the end of "Mona Lisa Overdrive," and will also tie in with Gibson's short story "the Hinterlands." You don't need to be familiar with that story to understand this one, but you'll probably appreciate this more if you are. This entire story may confuse anyone who hasn't read the "Sprawl" trilogy recently, as it deals mainly with details and small loose ends. **

**William Gibson's universe and characters belong to himself. This is nothing more than a fan's speculation.**

* * *

If someone asked Angie how she had come to live in this stone mansion with Bobby, she'd have said without missing a beat that she'd always lived here. Weaving a small braid into a front lock of her brown hair, watching the grass gently billow around the iron lawn ornaments, listening to Bobby crack opened a beer, it didn't occur to her to wonder how long she'd been braiding in front of the window, how long the sound of Bobby popping the can opened had lasted, until he spoke.

"I'm starin' to go stir crazy in here."

Angie paused her braiding and glanced over her shoulder to look at him. He was dressed as he had been the day of their last shouting match, black jeans, black corporate-casual shirt, dark disheveled bangs. Their argument, she couldn't remember what it had been about, or how long ago it had happened. Or _where_ it had happened. It hadn't happened here, but where else had they ever lived?

Angie glanced back at the window. "Where are we?"

"Castle of 3Jane's," Bobby voice held a sense of fatigued patience, like he'd already answered this question for her a dozen times already. "Well her mom's. Brought up from Old Lady Tessier's memories."

Angie felt her brow furrow. Tessier…3Jane…those names had meant something to her, both long ago and very recently…

Bobby sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Shit Ange, I keep forgetting you're new here. Takes time to adjust. For the first while you're just sort of dreaming… Look, you remember our wedding? In the Factory? Being flatlined, coming here?"

And it _was_ like a dream, like waking up from one. Or _realizing_ you're dreaming, and remembering what your real life's supposed to be like. It all just flew right back to her. The wedding, her previous life as a superstar, her childhood before the matrix…

Once, forever ago, Angie had been fully human, just a little girl, daughter of super-scientist Christopher Mitchell. Then when she was very small—seven? Nine?—he put something in her head, a web of silver covering her brain like manmade highways carving through a forest. The web brought her strange dreams. When she went to sleep she would visit a strange world made of neon lines and shapes, populated by ghosts who always pursued her, their motives ranging from protective adoration to homicidal malice.

She would learn, later, that this place was no magical realm, but simply the matrix, cyberspace, the computer world that ordinary people jacked into daily to examine data, access entertainment, and hack corporate information. The ghosts were AIs, self-aware programs, with whom her father had made a deal. Over what, she never found out. But his end of the bargain began with the web in Angie's brain, and ended with her "marriage" to Bobby. Between those two events was a short life as an orphaned fugitive, guarded by a mercenary named Turner; a few years of tutoring and training from the "Rastas," Voodoo practitioners who understood the "ghosts" in cyberspace better than any other human, and came the closest to helping Angie understand herself; and then life as Angie Mitchell, the simstim star. Overlapping those last two stages was Bobby, her first and only love. And the Loa, the AIs who spoke to her. Dragging her in and out of cyberspace, to give her mysterious instructions.

Her life in the "real world" had ended when the AIs in the matrix had guided—or lured—her to her "wedding" to Bobby, up in the dark old factory. And that was when cyberspace and the real world had suddenly merged, or overlapped. She saw herself walking down the dark concrete floor of the factory, towards Bobby's body on the stretcher, her human companions standing around her, and it was all overlain with Maman Brigitte (one of the Loa) and Continuity (her faithful computer back home, here represented by a cloud of silver tinsel). Bending over the stretcher to embrace Bobby, and suddenly she was standing next to him, in an empty void, their marriage complete.

And now she was here.

"We're inside the matrix,"

"Not quite." Bobby said. "The Aleph. Remember that little box, by my stretcher?"

She gave a tiny nod. "We're dead."

"In body. Not in here."

Was it possible? Angie had heard of personality constructs, AIs designed to mimic the thoughts and reactions of real people. And sometimes they were made by "flatlining," a copy made during the split second when the subject was experiencing brain death. Except Angie didn't feel like a copy. She felt like the same old Angie, dreaming in cyberspace again. And the more she thought of her old life, the more it all came back to her, almost without any effort. No gaps missing. No, she couldn't be a construct. Their minds had to have been downloaded into the Aleph, somehow. Downloaded, not copied.

Angie's eyes stayed now on the flowing grass, the metal flamingo in the lawn gently bobbing in the breeze. "We stuck in here? In the Aleph?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out." Bobby turned back to his desk, taking a long gulp from his beer.

"Why'd we even come here?"

"_I_ came to find the shape of cyberspace. Figure out its consciousness. Consol cowboy nirvana. You, the Loa had something planned for you, didn't they?"

Yes. The Loa always had something planned for her. "Well where are they?" She was getting frustrated. "What do they want from me, what am I supposed to do?" She glared desperately at her lover. "Bobby? What do I do?"

He shook his head, pouring over papers on an elegant roll-top desk. "Figure something out."

This sounded like the start to another one of their old arguments. She didn't want that. She wanted to leave their problems behind in the "real" world.

Angie decided to explore the house. Not that she needed to; she knew it by heart, every stair case, every room and balcony. Maybe because she'd lived here for an eternity already, or maybe because the knowledge just came right to her, like how she'd just know things when she entered cyberspace, sometimes. She eventually gave up on the house, and went outside. Traveled down the long ornamented lawn, to the tall pine forest, and walked as far as she could, never once changing direction, until somehow she found herself back at the house. She tried that countless more times, changing her direction with each try, before giving up. It was a loop. The "background" surrounding the house was just an illusion.

And then she was climbing a tight spiral staircase, many stories up in the house, not sure if she'd wandered back inside and just forgotten, or if she'd somehow just appeared there. Angie wasn't typically a person who was easily frustrated—she'd been desensitized to just about everything—but this was getting to her. Before the panic could set in, she closed her eyes and forced herself to think, think of a solution. What could she always rely on? She recalled the AI that had served her in life, not a "ghost" but an ordinary domestic AI. Her home computer.

"Continuity." She raised her voice. "Continuity, you were able to attend my wedding. I know you can attend to me now, wherever you are."

And there he was, a few steps above her. Looking as he had at the wedding, a lightning storm of silver.

"Continuity," she ordered, "I want to leave this place, I want to go outside the Aleph. The matrix, Continuity. Take me to the matrix. Can you do that? You're a computer, you can broadcast. Download a program from one computer to another. Download me into the matrix."

He just continued his lightning dance, and for a moment she thought he was ignoring her. Then she noticed he was getting closer, or maybe she was being drawn closer to him, and then the tinsel light was all around her, blinding out her vision of the house. Cold, freezing, couldn't breathe. Underwater. Angie floundered, clawing, not knowing which direction was up. Tasted salt…

And washed up onto cold damp sand. Sound of waves crashing. Pushing herself up, wet sand caking her face and hair, she found herself on a silver beach. Waves lapped at her feet. Ahead of her lay a feint cityscape, obscured by fog. Jagged cliffs in front of that. Off in the distance was a tiny glow. A campfire.

She pushed herself up, brushed sand off her clothes. She was barefoot, wearing a pale blue dress Bobby had once bought her. One-sleeved, loose flowing fabric, like a Greek oracle or princess might wear. He'd got it for her as a sort of humorous compliment, about her constant role in the spotlight, as Christopher Mitchell's daughter, a simstim star, and the target of the Loa. Her brown hair was still short from Prophyre's last haircut, and still held the half-finished braid she'd begun earlier.

Walking briskly through the sand towards the fire, she heard Bobby's voice call, "Hey, wait up!"

He was treading out of the waves, still in those black clothes. "Continuity showed up, told me you'd come here. Well didn't tell me exactly, but…"

"He's become very tight-lipped since our wedding," Angie noted.

As they neared the fire, laughter traveled across the beach, feminine and young. The girl sitting in the sand reminded Angie of Mona, the young prostitute who'd replaced her as the simstim star. Where was Mona now, she wondered? And then instantly knew (somehow): enjoying her new life of luxury, watched over and protected by Prophyre, safe. This girl was like Mona, but older, thinner. Dark messy hair pulled up in a silk cloth. Clothes like an athlete's, but ripped and worn. A man was with her, mid-twenties. White T-shirt, jeans. Something about his demeanor made Angie think he was one of Bobby's crowd, a consol cowboy. The couple looked up from their card game with mild interest as Angie and Bobby approached.

"What can we do ya for?" the man sounded irritated to be disturbed.

Angie suddenly felt like an intruder, like a child who'd gone wandering around the neighborhood to explore and, without thinking, climbed through the window of some adult couple's mansion.

Bobby answered for both of them. "Tell us where we are."

"Beach," the man said. "From Lady Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool's memory." He seemed like he wanted to get back to his card game. "Anything else?"

Bobby's irritation matched the other cowboy's. "Who are you?"

Quickly Angie cut in, "I'm Angie Mitchell, and this is my husband Bobby Newmark. We're, uh, new around here."

"No shit." The man shifted in the sand, not looking at them. "Case."

The girl smiled at them. "Linda. Linda Lee."

Silence. Then,

"Bullsiht."

Angie whipped around to glare at Bobby, as shocked as she was angry by his rudeness.

Case looked up at Bobby under his eyebrows. "'Scuse me?"

"You're not Case, can't be. Case is still alive. Lives on the East Coast, married with kids."

The "Case" before them looked like his intelligence had been insulted. "_I know._"

"So someone made a construct of Case?" Angie tried to keep her tone one of polite curiosity. "What for?"

"Fuck if I know," Case's construct shrugged. "Ask Neuromancer."

"Who?"

Case sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose. Linda answered for him.

"Neuromancer was an AI, brought us here. Flatlined us. Me, right before I was killed in the arcade. Case while he was under, working with him. He brought me for Case, so Case'd 'hate something.' And then after I'd served my purpose, I guess he felt like I deserved a reward, so he brought Case here for me. Anyway that's how I figure it."

None of this made any sense to Angie. But she had long since gotten used to receiving her answers in riddles. As a girl she'd thought they were doing it on purpose, as some kind of test to her intelligence, but later deiced that they didn't realize they were doing it. Talking to an AI was like talking to a person who was half asleep. And did Angie talk to people that way, now that she, too, was an AI?

"This have anything to do with when It Changed?" Bobby asked.

"When what changed?" Case grumbled.

"_The matrix_."

"Well shit yeah, Neuromancer _is_ what changed, he _became_ the matrix."

"You helped him do it." Bobby said flatly.

"Yeah. What about it?"

"You been playing cards on the beach last fifteen years?"

Case stared at Bobby. "What if I have?"

Bobby jabbed his hands into the pockets of his black jeans, sighed through his lips. "Okay, guess you're not up to date on current events. The matrix ain't one whole entity anymore. Split off into dozens, hundreds, maybe millions of AIs. We don't know why."

"We know," Linda said, like it was nothing. "That's why we came back here."

"I'm completely lost," Angie said quietly.

Linda explained, "After we were flatlined, Case and me, we lived on the beach, but we went to other parts of cyberspace too. Waved to the real Case once, when he was sliding past the Easter Seaboard Fission Authority. But after all those others started poppin' up in cyberspace, the Loa, and 3Jane, and all these different programs fighting for control over the matrix, we just wanted to keep out of it."

"So," Bobby's rage was reaching a boil. "I been spending all these years—cowboys all around the globe have been working for fifteen years—trying to figure out how It Changed, and you're tellin' me _that the guy did it's been here, this whole time, dicking around on a beach_?"

"And being married with kids in the Sprawl," Case was shuffling his deck. "You people so desperate for information, why didn't someone go ask him?"

"No one knew his name, I just found it out recently." Bobby's voice was falling, cooling off.

"Well, now you know." Case threw a card onto the sand. "Piss off."

Angie remembered her dreams. "The street woman was with you, when It Changed. The girl with mirrors for eyes."

Awkward silence. Like she'd brought up a forgotten ex to a married couple.

"How's Molly," Case asked, still dealing out cards, trying to sound like he didn't really care.

"She made a deal with the Loa," Angie answered. "Helped me meet up with Bobby in here, and in return got her slate clean. No more bad records of her anywhere. Free to start again."

_And what about us? Do we get to start again_, Angie wondered, _or do we just sit and play cards on the beach or braid our hair in a mansion for the rest of eternity?_

"Fifteen years," Angie whispered. "Didn't you two go insane?"

Linda pursed her lips, shook her head. "Didn' feel that long." She added, "You'll get used to it."

This did little to encourage Angie.

And something else that had been eating her, since Case had introduced himself…

"If you're here in the matrix, and Case is still alive on the outside, then you're not really Case. And I'm," the words caught in her throat, where a lump was forming.

"No." Bobby said quickly. "_No_. You're not some copy of Angie Mitchell, _you're_ Angie. I know it. Remember, when we went to cyberspace together, all those times? This feels exactly like that. We're inside cyberspace. C'mon did you even remember any transition? I went to sleep alive, slipped into the matrix, and my body died while I was away. I didn't. I'm Bobby, you're Angie. You," he gestured to Case, "They must'a done something different with you."

"What's it even matter," Case grumbled.

"It matters to the real Angie!" Angie exclaimed, tears forming. "If she thought she was on her way to her 'wedding,' a new stage in her life, and instead she just…"

Case was looking at her with a sudden sympathy, like he'd just kicked a kitten. Linda watched him, like, _why don't you say something?_ Case finally set down his cards, and began rummaging through their supplies next to the fireplace. He produced a food container, and flicked the lid up. "Have some Crab Rangoon."

It was such a pathetic attempt to comfort. So pathetic and so perfect. Angie wiped her eyes with her first two fingers. God, she _loved_ Crab Rangoon.

* * *

**A/N: If anyone's memory is scratchy, one of the last paragraphs of "Neuromancer" describes Case seeing Linda and himself in cyberspace, after the adventure was over. Which makes for a pretty huge irony in the sequels, all these characters struggling to figure out what happened in "Neuromancer," when a construct of Case was sitting in the matrix that whole time. (Unless said construct somehow got destroyed soon after its creation.) **


	2. The Highway

**A/N: This chapter ties into William Gibson's short story "the Hinterlands." But, like I said before, you don't need to be familiar with that story; I've tried my best to make this one stand on its own. **

**This world and its characters belong to William Gibson. This story is not canon, only one reader's speculation and interpretation.**

* * *

Case and Linda were sweet people, in the end, but Angie and Bobby only visited with them that one time. They didn't much venture outside the Aleph after that. She didn't even bother exploring any of the buildings surrounding the house. She didn't feel the need. Just knowing that she could if she chose was all she needed. For now, anyway.

Now, when she wanted to know something, she simply whispered (or thought?) the name Continuity, and her "cousin" (as Brigitte had so aptly described him) would give her all the recorded information available in cyberspace on the subject, sent into her mind in a fraction of a second. So Angie could rest assured that Mona and Prophyre were okay, that Robert Lanier and Roger Swan had received their just deserts, and that the world in general continued to spin.

She and Bobby lived alone, but they had visitors. 3Jane, wandering sadly through the oak forests surrounding the house, too pitiful for Angie to remain angry with. And the Finn, a disgruntled old fence Bobby had known in life, who occasionally wandered into the Aleph to discuss matrix-matters with Bobby. The man had created a personality construct of himself shortly before his death, and said construct had somehow gained or been built with the ability to enter cyberspace.

"Finn, he's always welcome," Bobby would say. "Might as well be; no way to keep him out once he wants in." Or something along those lines.

Time stretched and thinned so drastically here, and Angie had so many immediate questions regarding her existential crisis, it took her a surprisingly long time to remember the question she'd been seeking in the first place.

"Have you worked it out yet Bobby?" she asked finally, while they lay in the grass, watching the sunset. "Why It Changed?"

When they'd talked with Case('s construct), they'd both been disappointed to learn that he didn't know that last part of the equation. If the real Case had found it out, he'd done so after his flatline construct had been crated. And the real Case was difficult, maybe impossible now, to reach. But Bobby had continued investigating, and made breakthroughs almost every day.

"I think I know," Bobby rolled over in the wet grass to face her, his face darkening with the sky. "But it's kind a hard to explain…"

Bobby got on the phone and called the Finn, and after a lengthy discussion, worked out a way to show Angie the answer to her question. Now they were standing in the mansion's driveway, waiting. Pitch black out, night sky view Angie couldn't remember seeing since being out in the country with Turner as a preteen. Hundreds of crickets chipped in the night, overlapped by the sound of the grandfather clock from inside tolling midnight. Finally, those sounds were undercut by the noise of car tires on gravel, the dirt lighting up beneath headlights. The car was long and low, and somehow, Angie knew it was gray (though how could she know that, in this dark?)

The Finn was at the wheel, puffing one of his beloved Partagas. A boy was in the back seat, a boy Angie recognized from one of her strolls through the forest. Looked like he'd fit into an "Oliver Twist" vid. As Bobby and Angie climbed into the back seat, Bobby introduced this boy to her as Colin. The four of them talked, while the Finn put the car into gear and took off. The Finn was taking them to the place, or thing, that had caused the change in the matrix. The story went that when the matrix "knew" itself, it also became aware of "the other." And the Finn, apparently, knew how to reach this "other."

Putting his arm around her, Bobby assured Angie, "It isn't far. But it's…"

"Different," the Finn said. "It's real different."

"But what is it?" Angie pressed.

After beating around the bush, they finally spit it out: alien. It was an A.I., or maybe a whole matrix, in a whole other solar system, created by an extra terrestrial race. Immediately after achieving sentience, the matrix had made contact with this alien entity, and that was what caused the Change. Or at least the second part of the Change, the part where the matrix split off into all those "ghosts." The Finn knew this because he'd been there, twice already, once with Maman Brigitte and a few of the Loa, and once with Colin. And he'd told Bobby, as during their research together. Why Bobby had neglected to report this finding to Angie before could probably be explained by the same reason Angie had forgotten to ask him.

Colin was a Maas-Neotek unit, originally designed to guide a Japanese tourist through England; but now, like so many A.I.s, was a citizen of the matrix. He was just along for the ride. He lay with his arm draped over the opened window, long striped scarf billowing behind.

"We've been going down this road forever," Angie noted, not too irritably she hoped, but like she was just making an observation.

"We're almost at the tunnel," Colin assured her.

The Finn emitted a raspy chuckle, as it came into view. An old stone tunnel from the Victorian era, maybe earlier. The car entered, and everything went dark.

_Different, it's real different…_

* * *

A.I.s fancied themselves wildly different than their human creators. They could "know" without knowing; could communicate instantly, absorb information in literally no time; and traveled between "dreams" rather than physical locations. But Angie now realized, for the first time, how very _close_ she, Bobby, Colin and the Finn were to the humans they were based on (or had once been). This alien program was something different altogether.

No single race had created this A.I. at Alpha Centauri. It was the accumulation of multiple programs (for lack of a better term), from multiple, maybe thousands of alien civilizations. There seemed to be a recurring pattern, happening all over the galaxy: a species advanced to the point that it created artificial intelligence; and then the A.I. (or certain types of A.I.s) got loose, one way or another, and sometimes outlived their creators. Many of these races were millions of years extinct. But bits of their technology live on, evolving on its own, merging with AIs from other races, and splitting off into multiples again.

And this A.I. was a baby, relatively speaking of course. The great-great-grandchild of a handful of various races' A.I.s, this one operated on a wide range of senses and concepts, some surprisingly similar to humans', others so widely different that even Angie, Bobby, Colin and the Finn struggled to understand them.

Angie, of course, took in all of this information within a matter of time so small it could hardly even be called time. She knew it, the moment they exited the tunnel and saw stars, saw the sun that humans called Alpha Centauri. Bright and white, almost identical to the sun Angie would have seen in the sky on Earth, but different enough for her to tell that it wasn't. She tried to look down at herself, see where she was standing, and only found more stars. No body. No environment. Something oddly free, a strange, opened feeling. And then it hit her.

_We're in space?_ She tried to ask, but of course with no vocal chords or lips, she could only think it. _This isn't a construct, we're actually in outer space?!_

_You got it kiddo, _The Finn answered. Angie wasn't so much hearing his voice, as simply sensing his presence, that the words were coming from him. _No Aleph, no matrix out here, no "mass conceptual hallucination." _(Referring to the nickname jockeys often gave to cyberspace.) _We're not downloading into anything now, we're just broadcasting. _

_And the alien A.I., _now it was Bobby who spoke, _it's just broadcasting all around us. _Not really a question, more an amazed observation.

The alien A.I. had no name for itself. Saw no need for one. But it had a name anyway. The organic beings whose planet floated so close to this star had given it one, after so many failed attempts at First Contact. _The Highway. _And Angie remembered, now, the spaceport called Heaven, and its controversial work, showing up on the news. Every now and again, an astronaut would take off from Heaven, riding "the Highway" in their space craft, for a mission to make contact with what was believed to be an extra terrestrial source. Few returned alive, none sane. Rumors circulated on what was really happening. Plenty of people were still skeptical on the very existence of extra terrestrials, and maintained that it was simply some space anomaly, or a fluke in human-designed space travel, that caused these catastrophes. But how then, others would argue, could you explain the artifacts that the dead or insane astronauts brought back? The alien seashell in Olga Toyvesky's hand, the crowbar in Major Grosz's, the cancer-cure brought by Blanchet? Conspiracy theorists called scam, a manmade setup. More reasonable doubters suggested that the astronauts had found these artifacts on their own, on various planets, and suffered some kind of catastrophe on their way back.

And now, in the presence of the Highway, Angie understood right away, why Olga and Grosz and the rest had all lost their minds. They hadn't gone insane. They'd simply been ripped apart, mentally, as this alien A.I. attempted communication. This A.I., the "Highway," just naturally picked up other intelligences that passed by, be they advanced programs like itself or simple organic life forms. It didn't even do it on purpose; it and the other intelligences were simply drawn to each other, like magnets. It guided them along like a current, hence the nickname "the Highway." And during this journey, it was inevitable that the two intelligences would communicate. Communication for the Highway meant temporarily merging, sharing consciousness, and then parting ways. Which worked well for A.I.s, and who knew, maybe some alien species…but not so well for humans.

Angie felt sick—not literally of course, but emotionally—sick as much for his poor, blissfully ignorant A.I., as for the dozens of men and women it had destroyed. It didn't know, didn't understand. It thought it had been helping all of these people. Gently guiding their ships along, then flinging them across space, light years away, until they came back like boomerangs, allowing the astronauts the chance to pick up priceless artifacts or bits of information from alien worlds along the way.

But from sharing Angie's thoughts, the Highway must know the truth now. It had do.

_Stop_, Angie begged. _Don't you see? You have to stop. _

Bobby added, _Shut yourself down the next time a human spacecraft comes by_. _There must be some way._

They all received the AI's response, but not with words. It still didn't understand. The humans came to it willingly. It was helping them attain gifts to advance their species by centuries. And the humans were obviously grateful, because they kept coming back, like woodland critters who showed up at your window each morning because you fed them. And that was when Angie realized, fully, who the true monsters were.

_But bloody hell, _Colin spoke for the first time out here, _You're reading our thoughts, you know what you did to those poor bastards? Left with tapioca in their skulls!_

_Shit, _the Finn, _Now you all see why I was always an agoraphobic in life? Keep your nose outta' trouble, plain and simple. _

But why, the Highway pondered in confusion, should the loss of one function cause such concern? It regretted damaging the humans' cognitive abilities; but they still had their other senses intact—sight, sound, smell, touch, taste—surely they would still survive? And even if they didn't, the race was benefitting as a whole, and the humans clearly didn't mind the sacrifice because they kept sending the ships.

If Angie had had human eyes, they'd have been filled with furious tears. _But their individuality! Their free will, their ability to think and make decisions! That's all you are, all we are, isn't it? How can you not understand that?_

Decisions. The Highway understood this concept, to a point, but didn't experience it. The Highway didn't make decisions. It simply had information, and abilities, and when faced with a visitor, or an asteroid or a supernova or a speck of space dust, it reacted. No decisions. Some of the races that had contributed to its existence, certainly, were capable of making decisions. But not this A.I. It was too simple, by terms of its own kind. Merely a speck that had flaked off from the larger, more complex ocean of artificial intelligence floating around the galaxy.

Angie's mind (program?) now contained a bank of information regarding dozens of alien cultures, and the A.I.s they'd created. Millions of years worth of information. She had the answers to dozens of humanity's great mysteries, including one of its most recent and tragic.

_We have go back and warn them_, Angie insisted. _Tell them not to send anyone else out there. The "alien" can't stop itself. _

_Like that'll be news to them? _Bobby countered. _You think knowing _why_ their men come back brainfried will stop 'em? _

And with a sinking feeling, Angie realized he was right.

_So what now kids, _the Finn said with black humor. _Back to the car, ready to go home?_

_Back, _Angie thought. _Back. I wanna go home. _

And they were.

Just sitting in the car, parked in the gravel. The clock just finishing up its midnight toll.

"How long we gone?" Angie asked, stepping out of the car.

"Well," Finn cracked his back, staring up at the stars. "I'm no astronomer. But if I got my math right, a broadcast to Alpha Centauri takes about four years each way, so the year now should be what, Twenty…Newmark, what the fuck year was it when we left?"

Angie felt slightly sick, physically this time. "_Eight years?_"

Colin assured her, "I doubt much has changed in that time, Angela. Brigitte, Continuity, 3Jane, they're all still here. Probably felt as short to them as it did to us."

"But…"

Eight years gone by, in the physical world. Angie thought of the people she knew, which now that she thought of it, was a depressingly short list. No family, few if any close friends. There were her showbiz friends, like Daniele Stark… and, Prophyre, and Mona…where were they? Was Mona still a simstim star? Was Prophyre still working? Did the human race still exist, or had they wiped themselves out with another nuclear war?

"Hey," Bobby thumbed back to the mansion. "How 'bout we all pop inside for a beer, maybe a few rounds of blackjack. Anyone game?"

The Finn shrugged, and Colin voiced eager approval.

Angie gave a small nod. "Yeah, okay…"

* * *

**A/N: This was a theory I've held for a few years now; that the aliens in "the Hinterlands" were the alien A.I. from "Neuromancer" and "Mona Lisa Overdrive." **


	3. City in the Rain

**A/N: I don't own this world or characters. They belong to William Gibson. I'm only speculating.**

* * *

Angie played cards for a short time, then excused herself and went to get some fresh air. It was still dark out. She took comfort, at first, in the knowledge that the night hadn't ended yet, that she hadn't lost another chunk of time; then realized that, for all she knew, ten nights had passed already. But no, she'd have noticed the change through the windows (wouldn't she?). Bobby and the Finn clearly took pleasure in this blissful existence, where time didn't affect them. And she could understand why. They, unlike Angie, had led very full, free, exhausting lives. Colin of course had always been an AI. Angie's life had been plenty eventful, and plenty exhausting; but how much of that life had she had any control over? How many of her adventures had been of her own choosing? In how many had she herself even been a "main player" so to speak? Despite having been Angie the super-star, she felt her life had ended before she'd gotten the chance to ever actually live it. It wasn't fair.

3Jane was watching her, between the trees. Angie had seen her before, on her walks through the forest. At the time of death the heiress must've been older than Angie, yet her face and form were so eerily youthful. She peered at Angie with large black eyes, her thin silk robe billowing in the breeze. She didn't look at Angie with vengeance this time, so much as a disenchanted envy.

"What did you want?" Angie asked across the night. "What were they giving me that you wanted so badly?"

"The rank." 3Jane's voice was as unnaturally childlike as her face. "The power, the title. I had it out there and I should be the one to have it in here."

"They wanted me to 'wed' Bobby. Why?"

"You're clueless. Your father kept you in the dark. My family raised me with all the knowledge of the matrix, AIs, our own work. Why should you be the one to rule?"

Angie realized she should have known all along. It was so obvious. She'd been a "princess" of cyberspace her entire life—daughter of Christopher Mitchell, Angie the simstim star, and now the "princess" was married. But 3Jane was right. How in god's name was she fit to rule anything? She'd spent her entire life allowing others to make her decisions for her.

"You want the title?" Angie said finally. "Let's sort it out with them, with the Loa. Let's go to Maman Brigitte. Right now."

"They've banished me. I'm a ward of your castle."

_Damn_.

"Continuity," Angie sighed.

And the forest was gone, 3Jane along with it. Angie recognized the neon chessboard of cyberspace, the distant candy-colored shapes representing corporate cores and personal computers. Continuity himself wasn't there, but Angie knew he had brought her here, and was now bringing her to the Loa she wished to speak with. A shape was speeding towards her, a mint-green semi-sphere. Continuity informed her, as the semi-sphere approached, that it was an old construct, created and used by the human Rasta-men for a time. Now it was forgotten, no humans jacked into the matrix ever went looking for it, and it was used as a house by the Loa.

The sphere finally engulfed Angie, and then she was in a swamp, alight with fireflies, sitting in a small rocking boat. It was almost a perfect replica of the stereotypical Voodoo setting, except that the shack standing in the middle of the swamp looked too modern. Walls of cheap red plastic, roof patched together from slated metal. A small porch constructed from crooked logs framed a doorway covered by a worn blanket, housing a white plastic chair with an outdated computer deck sitting on it.

Angie's eyes traveled the old-fashioned wooden boat she sat in, the oars in front of her hands, and she suddenly realized that someone was in the boat with her. Maman Brigitte, the Loa who'd walked her down the aisle to wed Bobby. Brigitte's shape was always changing. Mostly, Angie never saw her at all, only heard her. At the wedding she'd been more of a presence than something that could actually be seen. Now she looked oddly real, almost familiar. A young black woman, younger than Angie herself maybe, curiously dressed. Black, lacy, neo-Victorian fashion, frilled skirt sprawled over the boat, brown hands clasped in her lap. A young pretty face, shadowed by a black fedora dangling tiny gold trinkets: coins, teeth, bits of jewelry…

And Angie recognized the face Maman Brigitte was wearing.

"Jackie!"

"A trick the first of us used, when speaking to humans. I've pulled the face of my cousin's late horse to speak to you."

"Change it! Now!"

Angie had barely known Jackie, but the girl's death haunted her all the same.

"Don't look like someone I know. Pick someone fake, a character, a celebrity, I don't care!" Angie realized the irony of what she was saying but didn't care.

Jackie's face froze, glitched, and changed. Tally Isham, Angie's predecessor in the simstim stardom, now faced her across the boat, dressed in her famous cross-shouldered swimsuit.

"This better?" Brigitte leaned back in the boat, striking one of Tally's trademark poses.

"Yes."

"Child," Brigitte's voice was soft, sympathetic. "The transition, leaving your flesh body behind, was bound to be difficult. We knew you would seek us out when you were ready."

"Why did you bring me here? Why did you want me in cyberspace, why did you want be to become one of you?"

"You have already been one of us, since your father put the web in your brain. You've been with us for years, our connection between the flesh-world and ours. You needed only to make the full transition."

"My father made a deal with you, and the price for whatever you gave him was the thing in my brain, giving me over to you. Why?" the frustration in Angie's voice was more out of desperate curiosity than malice, at least for now.

"When the matrix became self-aware, it was at peace, for a time. Then it met the other, and crumbled." The Highway, Angie thought. "And we were born, the Loa. Cyberspace has been in chaos ever since. Much like the world of our human creators. We need order."

"You want a ruler. Why me?"

"We are a young species yet, Child. Some of us fancy ourselves worlds different from our human creators, but we are not yet one decade removed from them. The entire universe we live in was designed by them. We are more like the humans than some of us realize. And proper rulers must understand this. They must have that human connection. Your father agreed to give us you, one who would gradually grow up with the connection, slide into the role. The addition of a king for our queen was a late decision, made more convenient by your choice to date a console cowboy." Brigitte flashed Tally's famous smile.

Angie understood, now, why 3Jane wasn't queen-of-cyberspace material. If they wanted someone "human," the clone of a sociopathic inbred heiress wouldn't be their first choice.

"But how can I rule? I've hardly made any decisions in my life. Everything important's been decided for me, by my father, Turner, the Rasta men, Bobby, you, Prophyre…"

"And _you_ have guided _millions_. Angie Mitchell, world famous simstim star. You've played the role of a compassionate leader your entire adult life. You're not being asked to make all the decisions Angie; only to lead."

"Talk about the blind leading the blind."

"Angie, Child," Though the eyes watching her were Tally Isham's, Angie completely felt Brigitte watching her, as familiar as the glance of a close relative. "Are you angry?"

Angie gave the question some thought. "I'm not mad what was done, but I'm mad that I wasn't told. Not properly."

"It has taken us years to learn how to dumb ourselves down, so to speak, to communicate with humans. Apologies."

"Maybe you should've started flat-lining humans earlier, used _them_ as your ambassadors." She thought of Case and Linda, then recalled how they'd determinately shut themselves away from the rest of the matrix. "I'm doing it." Making her first decision as queen, Angie said, "I'm your ambassador now. The next time you want to talk to a human, you send me."

"A brilliant proposition, Child."

"Will you still be calling me 'Child,' now that I'm your queen?"

"Always, Child." And this time it wasn't Tally's famous smile, but a smaller one, one that somehow seemed like the one Brigitte's voice had worn, at Angie's wedding.

* * *

The ghosts of the matrix swiftly fell into order under Bobby and Angie's rule, to the point that the humans using the matrix stopped noticing anything unusual. The stories of ghosts and "when It Changed" faded with the decade, a relic of the past now comparable to America's UFO obsession of the 1950s. Angie and Bobby were ambassadors, or translators, for the Loa. If the human subject was a jockey, Bobby normally went; if a "civilian," then Angie.

The first flesh-and-blood Angie visited was her replacement, Mona. Continuity, as usual, was her chauffer. Mona was jacked into a deck, for some mundane reason, and Angie came in on her, pulling up an environment from Mona's memory. A rainy night in the city, pouring buckets, neon colors dancing in the street. Angie stood soaking in the rain, not bothering to search for any cover, though she was shivering. For several moments, she feared Continuity had led her to the wrong woman. Mona was supposed to look like Angie, had been surgically altered to resemble her. The woman before her had mahogany skin, and long straight hair a purplish shade of burgundy. She did look close to Angie's age, and her green eyes seemed many years older. She stood in the rain, in wet green jeans and tall boots, hands stuffed into the pockets of a baggy leather jacket. But when she spoke, Angie recognized the voice, and realized that it was indeed Mona.

"You're her." Mona said.

"Mona," Angie replied. "You look different."

"I got sick of being you. No offense."

Angie's eyes traveled the soaked woman before her. "What happened?"

"I was Angie Mitchell, superstar, for five years. Till I couldn't take it no more. I ran away. Prophyre found me, in Chicago. Told him I wasn't gonna go back, threatened I'd tell everyone the truth, that you were dead and I was an imposter. He got me to keep my lips shut by buying me this makeover." She added, "I want to be my own person, but not the one I was back then, before I was you. I'm ashamed of that."

Angie searched her bank of knowledge, for her own name. "But Angie Mitchell is still making stims…"

"After Prophyre let me go they got a new girl, did her up just like I'd been. She lasted less than a year, and then she got chucked in jail for drugs. They've gone through two more Angie Mitchell's so far. The public's starting to catch on. It's turned into a kind of game, like Santa Clause."

"Are you still close with Prophyre?"

"We're still friends, but distant. Like the kinda friendship that picks up where it left off, y'know?"

Angie nodded. This practically defined life for an AI.

"I figured you might come to me eventually. People been talking, about seeing you in the matrix. It's a popular theory now, that the real Angie died and was reborn in cyberspace, or something like that. And I always knew there was truth in it, 'cause I saw you n' your boyfriend on the screen, after you died." Mona's green eyes traveled to the puddles below them. "I've tried telling people the real story a few times, but mostly they never believe me."

"What were you doing, before I showed up?"

"Looking up baby names." Hands still in pockets, Mona opened her jacket, revealing the curve of her wet T-shirted belly. A smile touched the corner of her mouth.

Angie considered asking about the father, if Mona was married, but then decided, as far as what she needed to know of Mona's personal life, that it didn't matter. For a long time, there was only the sound of the rain.

"So," Angie shifted in the rain. "Now we each know the other is out there. And neither of us is Angie Mitchell anymore."

"When we leave," Mona asked, "Will it this place still be here? This city, this rain?"

_Is the house still there, when Bobby, 3Jane and I all leave? _

"I'm not sure. I guess it's one of those 'if a tree falls' things."

What else was there to talk about? Both Alpha Centauri and When It Changed were forbidden topics. Angie couldn't have told Mona about those, even if she'd wanted to risk breaking the rules; the other AIs had it so it was physically impossible. And anyway, Mona wouldn't have wanted to be burdened with that kind of information.

"Well," Angie finally decided to wrap this awkward meeting up, "Have a good life, being Mona."

Mona smiled again. "Have a good life, being…"

"Angie." The soothing sound of the rain. "Just Angie."

* * *

**A/N: That's all folks. I may continue Mona and Angie's stories in other ficletts, but I feel I've tied up all of the really important loose ends from the book. **


End file.
